Bartzokas: «Congrats to my players for not giving up»
Giorgos Bartzokas commented on the fact that Olympiacos fought to the end with all they had to get the win.
"Congratulations to Real, they've been playing very well. They have great offensive players. They have Musa, Hezonja and of course, Deck, who has returned feeling great. They have small players, they have big players, it's really difficult to play them, especially right now, with everything we've going through. We started the first quarter without any assists, we tried to react and not act, especially in defense. Real can easily score 30 points in a single period and that's what they did. We did not pass at all and then we had 20 assists in the next three quarters. We had a chance at winning, but two-three critical offensive plays and 2 turnovers, 2 defensive rebounds we lost, decided the game. Again, congratulations to Real and to my players for not giving up after a bad start. We wait for the injured ones to recover and see what our potential is".
Asked about what it is he keeps from the game, the disappointment of the first half, or the joy for the combativeness of the second one, he replied: "When you lose, you cannot be happy about anything. I trust my players. We have good players that have played some great basketball in the last 2 or 3 years. This season is hard because from the beginning we have been missing so many, which makes it very difficult to build on chemistry. One after another is getting injured, that's why we don't really know what our ceiling is. Milutinov is going to have surgery and is out of commission for two months. As for Goss, it's not something serious. We just wanted to protect him".
He then talked about Papanikolaou and Sikma: "Sikma played very well, he grabbed 10 boards, while Papanikolaou was the 'glue' in everything, on both ends of the court. What changed the game, for me, was our fighting spirit. We said we had to play with pride. Even if you have problems, if you play with pride, you can cover for a lot. In recent years we fight any where we go and that's very important for a team like Olympiacos".